4 Weeks with Radeon R9 290X CrossFire @ [H]

Syphon Filter: I assume you've determined it's the graphics cards making the noise? It's entirely possible with a complete new build for another component to be producing noise you weren't expecting.

Geck0: At the risk of responding to what almost seems like a trollpost, as I've stated elsewhere, until the replacement of the 3008WFP with a UP3214Q, this was enough power to run quite a lot of games. I could run Battlefield 3 at 2560x1600 with most of the detail settings high (admittedly not all of them), and Borderlands 2 ran fine on mostly high settings, as did Bioshock Infinite. Given that the pair of HD6970s was fairly reliable and quiet, I had no reason to upgrade them. Disregarding how affluent you think people may be for their hardware purchases, in my case I really want to see a substantial performance benefit before making a significant upgrade. Until the arrival of the 290 series, there was nothing really that provided a big enough performance boost that warranted spending that much money. Now that the 290s have arrived, I'm still not convinced simply because I don't want to return to the days of having a PC that makes a daft amount of noise, heats my room up considerably (it's a small room) and is potentially going to have heat problems a couple of years down the line and force me to upgrade again.

As I stated, the HD4870X2 that had the issues (one was worse than the other, perhaps unsurprisingly) was given a thorough cleanout from the outside, so the airflow area was clear from any dust. Still at 100% fan speed it got sufficiently hot to throttle back eventually, when I sold it to someone with a worse-ventilated case than mine. In my PC it ran fine, but the fan was running around 90-95% in games on auto, and just about keeping the temps in the high 80s, which was about 5200rpm, crazy loud (considering the other card was still running fairly fast around 4000 odd).

Replacing TIM on a card being necessary before it is obsoletised, just to keep it running, never mind about it being quieter/cooler, is definitely not normal. If given basic attention to reduce dust periodically, a graphics card should be engineered well enough to run until it's well and truly outdated. My HD6970s are 3 years old in 4 weeks, and they're also caked in dust at the moment. I'll need to clean them out at some point, but no urgency, because they're not overheating and they're not getting particularly loud either, unless I run a litecoin miner. It may not bother the people who upgrade every generation, or who run max fan speeds as a matter of principle and have zero care about fan noise, but really, for the majority, I think the 290X and to a lesser extent the 290 are going to become seriously difficult to live with in 18 months time.
 
To reduce fan noise you can turn on Adaptive Vsync in the Nvidia control panel. This will lock your frame rate at your monitors refresh rate, thus keeping GPU workload down and thus less fan noise.

Personally, I find 780 Ti SLI to be quiet, in comparison to the 3 290's I had before and the 2 7970's I had before that. The only time 780 Ti becomes loud is when you start overclocking them, fans will quickly ramp up to about 85-95% to keep temps under control.

Is Adaptive V-Sync different to in-game V-Sync then?

Doesn't the AIR 540 also have fairly loud front intake fans? I am willing to bet he is hearing those more then anything.

Front case fans are fine, I checked. But...

You might want to try different fans for the H100i, as the stock ones ramp up the noise rather quickly to me, but it could be my 7990 card too. I think it is the stock H100i fans though and I have two quiter Corsar fans to put in there, I'm just too lazy to get it done.

Agreed, these fans DO give out an annoying warble/rattle, will be changing those for sure.

Syphon Filter: I assume you've determined it's the graphics cards making the noise? It's entirely possible with a complete new build for another component to be producing noise you weren't expecting.

While I have identified a component of the noise is coming from the H100i fans the 780Tis DO ramp up under load. At idle they're silent.

What I was getting at is that I do notice the them (the 780Ti) when I am gaming and they are pushing air. With the 290X being louder I think I would just find it even more distracting.
 
Yeah I'm assuming you have identified which noise is which - I'm not an H100i owner so I don't know whether the fans are heat adaptive, but they might potentially ramp up as well.
 
Yeah I'm assuming you have identified which noise is which - I'm not an H100i owner so I don't know whether the fans are heat adaptive, but they might potentially ramp up as well.
They definitely do through Corsair Link, which I installed (Software with the Cooler) It was my fist liquid cooler. I have since installed a Antec Khuler 920 in another computer and after getting installation sorted, it seems much cooler quieter to me, so much so I looked for another 920 or 950 for a third machine. Instead I am going to use a Zalman LQ320 with two fans (It comes with one)
 
Is Adaptive V-Sync different to in-game V-Sync then?
.

Yes. adapative vsync will limit your fps to your monitors refresh rate but if the fps dips below that refresh rate it wont cut the fps in half like traditional vsync does. with traditional vsync if your monitors refresh rate is 60hz, and your fps dips below that, vsync will lock the fps to 30fps.
 
Good article, Kyle.

Watching from the sidelines, waiting for the post-Christmas sales, I've just been flummoxed by the huge increase in prices for these R9 290 cards, it's insane, and definitely tainted by the 'must have by Christmas' mad rush, then multiplied by the 'must get *Coin mining in fast before bottom falls out of that market.'

People buying two or three cards at a time, well, I'm sure that the Global Financial Crisis isn't affecting 100% of people, but I doubt that -average- people generally have $2,000 to 'throw' at their computer. My personal limit on video cards is $US500, and the high end Nvidias have been double that for some time (Average Titan price in Australia is $AU1,300), whilst the AMD offering pre Nov 2013 hasn't been up to scratch -- until the R9 290's came along.

Finally, something to match the INSANELY overpriced Titan, for ~40% of the price, only to have the Coin Miners scoop up all available stock and then Newegg put prices up from the RRP of $399 to $499 in the space of a week.

I've got great hopes for the NON REFERENCE design coolers; there are hints and accusations that these cards are coming, but they're definitely not 'in the shops' at the moment.

Again, with my forcing-myself-to-wait-until-new-year approach, all of this pre-Christmas price fluctuation is really just theater; I watch and think to myself how unrestrained people can be when seeking the New Shiny.

It will be very interesting to see what the AMD and NVIDIA marketplace is like during January 2014, with the mining boom going bust, and suddenly a -huge- influx of second-hand R9 290 cards up for *cheap* on Ebay ...

Very interesting indeed.
 
Don't blame AMD for you're poor case choice and airflow.

I have a good case choice. The only thing I blame AMD for is unrealistically limiting the max fan speed. Thats it.
 
Can't blame AMD for prices either. It's not their fault that retailers raised prices above MSRP.
 
Don't blame AMD for you're poor case choice and airflow.

I have a good case choice. The only thing I blame AMD for is unrealistically limiting the max fan speed. Thats it.

The problem would have had almost no media attention had that been the case. It would just be 'a loud card'. The decision to limit the fan speed on such an undercooled card is a bit baffling.
 
The problem would have had almost no media attention had that been the case. It would just be 'a loud card'. The decision to limit the fan speed on such an undercooled card is a bit baffling.

In the case that is specific to that statement, I think he is 100% correct.
 
The problem would have had almost no media attention had that been the case. It would just be 'a loud card'. The decision to limit the fan speed on such an undercooled card is a bit baffling.

First of all, the "limit" is to compete directly with the NVidia GTX 780, etc stock reference cards cooler. It is one of the most silent HSF I have ever used.

Secondly....there is no limit on fan speed if you do the following......
uber mode
in CCC activate Overdrive
slide the fan slider all the way to the right....to 100%.
Now, the card can use any fan speed it wants.

I often see mine running at 75% when the GPU temp pegs at 95C.......and they are very noticeable.......loud is subjective......but it sounds like a sustained 30 mile per hour wind right outside your bedroom window.
 
A single 290X is actually pretty quiet compared to the 680 SLI I had before hand, where I had to crank the fans to 80% to keep the card under 70C to avoid throttling at 1300MHz. Say what you want about AMD's reference cooler design, but I do appreciate the fact that they allow the end user much more granular control over the throttling and temperature thesholds on the card.
 
A single 290X is actually pretty quiet compared to the 680 SLI I had before hand, where I had to crank the fans to 80% to keep the card under 70C to avoid throttling at 1300MHz. Say what you want about AMD's reference cooler design, but I do appreciate the fact that they allow the end user much more granular control over the throttling and temperature thesholds on the card.

I have two 290X, I've had 680s in SLi as well......I think it's an entirely different noise.

You bet the 680s are loud....high pitched and whiny. But the Titan/780 at the same speed is inaudible.

The 290s are more like a sustained whoosh.

The above is why I watercool everything.
 
I just stepped up to the plate and got a Sapphire 290X, I'll try to manage the noise. the 7970 it replaces will go in another machine with a 7970, it will be my first crossfire in many years.
 
Greetings Kyle,

I don't know if I miss this info on the article... but since you are using a ASUS ROG Maximus VI Extreme this means you have the two R9 290X in a 8X/8X configuration ?

Thanx
 
I just stepped up to the plate and got a Sapphire 290X, I'll try to manage the noise. the 7970 it replaces will go in another machine with a 7970, it will be my first crossfire in many years.

I have three different reference design r9 290s and they are very loud when the fan gets over 54% to me. I moved my computer to the laundry room and now the noise doesn't bother me a bit. :)
 
I think I'll buy the Arctic Cooling Acellero Extreme III VGA cooler. I'll do the Stock Sapphire 290X cooler first and see how it sounds, performs, then make the switch and see If I can see or hear a difference.
 
lol, you will damn sure hear a difference the ACX3 is silent pretty much with the fans maxed.

I don't like that it dumps the heat into my case, but that's what case fans are for I guess.
 
Greetings Kyle,

I don't know if I miss this info on the article... but since you are using a ASUS ROG Maximus VI Extreme this means you have the two R9 290X in a 8X/8X configuration ?

Thanx


Yes. 8x8 Gen 3 PCIe.
 
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